Tragic Anniversary
by Cosmic Fiction
Summary: The past can never be escaped, it cannot be ignored, but instead of trying to run from it...maybe it is time to let it rest, and become a part of you. You are only human after all, and pain is simply a way of life. CHARACTER SHORT FOR KNIGHTS OF GRIMM


**Shout-out to RelentlessCrusader for helping me come up with this idea, and to Marius15 for the badass cover he made of Kassius and Yang!**

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 _The past is something you can't escape, and something that you can't forget…_

 _…no matter how hard you try._

 _It always stays with you, like a scar that has been branded on your skin._

The lone Huntsman sits on the bar stool, multiple people around him as they talk about their daily lives. The smell of alcohol in the air, almost polluting it as the men and women laugh and tell their crappy jokes and repetitive stories to one another. He has heard their stories countless times now, knowing the ends to every joke. Knowing the twist in all their stories, it just gets tiring after a while.

The Bartender approaches the Lone Huntsman and provides him his small glass of the midnight orange drink. The ice cubes clink against one another as he slides it across the bar and into the open metal hand that catches it. He exhales through his nostril, sighing as he rubs the scar tissue on the side of his face with his other gloved hand. Both hands have fingerless brown gloves on, and his arms are concealed with the long sleeves of his brown duster jacket. With a brown leather stetson on his head, weathered over time with some scratches and tears in it, and a bullet hole through the brim of the headwear. He taps his boots against the floor gently as he thinks, holding the glass in his cybernetic fingers, staring at the little ice cubes that dance beneath him.

His name is Kassius Locke.

A man with a past he can never forget but always creeps up on him. His amber eyes stare down at them and in the reflection of the alcohol inside he sees a monster staring back up at him. One with fiery orange eyes and a grin but when he blinks it fades away from his view. He sighs, closing his eyes tight, finding his memory starting to flow back into his mind.

A time before he had a metal arm and he had a burn on one side of his face.

A time…when he had a team.

Kassius blocks the swings from his adversary, who swings her shorter and thinner arms at him, grunting with every move made his way. He chuckles with a smile, looking younger without the scar tissue on his face and the stubble. He also has no metal arm, and actually looks happier for once, backing up as he blocks the swings. Her punches make no real hit, and he pushes her aside and she falls to the ground easily.

She slides across the dirt, sighing as she rubs her head with gritted teeth, staring at him. She had long coffee brown hair, here it was tied up into a ponytail that hangs down to the middle of her spine. She was very athletic, with a crop top on that is purple with orange accents on it and with bandages wrapped around her knuckles. She also wears leather boots and black shorts, showing her darker skin than his own. Tanned from the sun but also from where she was born, in the Deserts of Mistral – meaning she was born with darker skin due to the conditions that the people born there have to endure.

The hazel eyed girl sighs, raising one of her curvy eyebrows at him as she lays on the ground. Kassius paces back and forth, speaking with that alluring and yet intimidating voice. But it was never intimidating to her or his team – or any of his friends. But if you met Kassius and never knew him, you would be a little scared of him at first. "That wasn't fair, you cheated." She complains, with a similar accent to that of Velvet Scarlatina.

"Fighting's never fair, Vetra. Why do you think I have these scars?" He asks her, turning his back to her. Back then he was less clothed, a bit like a certain Mr Wukong, but also, they are training in the middle of the hottest Summer that Mistral has ever known. So, he can be forgiven that on his occasion, showing the many scars that cover his muscular body that he has toned over the years. Working out in the gym and fighting the Grimm that attack him – or even people that came at him.

The scars are deep that cover his chest and back, some on his arms as well. Looks like the claws of a Grimm that attacked him, when he was much younger as well. Vetra sighs, blowing out a breath that moves the strand of brown hair from her eye. "I know, I know Kassius…but that was a Grimm. Not your girlfriend." She reminds as she gets up with a chuckle, but Kassius stretches out his arm and grabs her hand, helping her back up to her feet and steadying her.

"Sure, but we don't train to only fight Grimm, do we? People are less predictable than them, they can fight dirty, like me." He chuckles, as he moves her shoulders to keep them steady and then he uses his foot to move her legs so then they are the right distance apart from one another.

"Yeah and you're totally not infuriating when you do it." Vetra scoffs as she watches him getting her stance right. However, her watching him slowly begins to descend into staring at him – admiring the very shape of his body. Her attraction to him was never something she could hide from Kassius, if anything the hardest part for their relationship was Kassius working up the courage to actually ask her out for a date.

"Ah, you knew what you were getting into when I first asked you out." He states with a wink, backing up and raising his fists up, standing in stance perfectly. Feet spread apart across the ground and staying calm, not showing any emotion at all really. Just staying neutral, and Vetra calms herself, listening to her breathing as the sweat trickles across her tanned skin. The tattoos that cover her arms and her torso are not in fact tattoos but a side effect of her Semblance – she is able to conjure weapons on command, like Velvet but unlike her she can just come up with a weapon and use her aura to form it. However, the issue with this is that the time her weapon is formed it slowly consumes aura, and the bigger the weapon the faster it drains.

Henceforth, she needs to learn how to fight with her fists, otherwise she would be killed very quickly with a semblance like that. She stands there and waits as the wind blows past them, welcoming amongst the heatwave that hit the Kingdom recently. She waits for Kassius to make his move since today he wanted her to improve on her defence, she is okay at attacking but it is holding her ground that is her issue.

But the problem with Kassius is that he has been trained by a masterful fist fighter in Patch – and his first love was a fist-fighter too.

Meaning he knows how to fight like one.

He swings suddenly and fast, not even grimacing as he makes his punch and she blocks the attack with her forearms, gasping as she backs up from him. He swings again, and she raises her right arm to stop his left punch, then she ducks underneath his roundhouse kick. The swing of the heel slams through the wooden post behind her, knocking it over and Kassius stands his ground, now blocking her attacks. She thrusts forward at great speed, punching hard and fast with both of her fists.

Kassius walks back, blocking some and dodging the others by moving his head. She swings forward, and he catches her forearm, pulling her close and staring at her with a smirk. "Never lunge, makes it easy for your enemy to stop you." He states, and she cannot even move now, and he pushes her back, and she strikes yet again. He slides across the floor and dodges her attack, and he thrusts his knee towards her. She jumps back and kicks into his chest to knock him back, flipping through the air and pressing both her feet against the building behind them. She kicks off it and blasts towards him, slamming her fist towards him but Kassius steps out the way to avoid her attack, punching down into the dirt.

She turns and gasps as Kassius roars, punching down at where she was stood, but she slides back and swings round, kicking him across the head and going to do it again, but Kassius stops her foot by the calf. "And don't repeat the same attack twice in a row, just makes you predictable." He states.

"Does it?" She asks him, as she takes her over leg and wraps it around his head, swinging round and now pressing her knees against his chest, forcing him down to the ground and pinning him. She looks down at him with a smirk and he chuckles with a smirk.

"Fair play…You're getting better quick, y'know? Faster than I did." He chuckles, and she smiles, loosening her grip on him, gently sliding her delicate fingers across his chest with a smile, showing her pearly white teeth with those pink lips glistening in the sunlight.

"I had a good role model." She softly whispers with a smile, pressing her hand against his warm skin. He reaches up and caresses her brown hair, amazed by her stunning beauty that she once had.

"I am a lucky guy, you know that?" He asks her.

"Ha! I am better than you deserve." She chuckles, making him laugh as well.

"Ain't that the truth?" He agrees, nodding his head.

She looks at his lips and then at his eyes. "And…I don't think I deserve you either…" She whispers as she sits atop him.

"What do you mean?" He asks her.

"I…I was born in a lowborn family in the middle of the deserts…it was lawless…why should I be here?" She questions as she looks around, something that Kassius could always remember about her. That she would always question herself, due to where she was born and the family she had. Life out there in the deserts is hard and there are more bandits than there are lawmakers – and even then – most of those lawmen are just as bad.

"Vetra, we talked about this. You're not like them." He reminds as he gently strokes her brown hair and she sighs, closing her eyes shut.

"You have always helped me…been there for me." Vetra softly says to him as she gently caresses his cheek and he smiles as he does the same for her, wiping some of the sweat from her cheek.

"Of course, I did…" He says to her.

She can't hold it back any longer. "I love you Kassius…I love you so much!" She cries out as she leans down and kisses him on the lips, and he wraps his arms around her, kissing her in return as she holds onto him. So tight she never wanted to let go.

That was their first ever kiss.

And for a few years training at Haven Academy it was all fine, they were madly in love and happy together…

…but…

…it never lasted.

Because of what happened a few years ago now, two years exactly to be precise. Now with scars on his face from an explosion that burned his face and the missing arm replaced with the metal phantom of what once was – he is very different to that guy. He has become cynical outside of his friends, showing more anger than happiness and not as friendly around strangers anymore. But his ruthlessness is what defines him, the fact that he takes no prisoners, he kills his enemies instead of letting them survive and pull a Houdini on them in the future.

He holds a photograph in his hand, showing him and his team looking so happy. When they went on a holiday to the beaches of Mistral. And the photo shows his team – Team K.R.D.V – also known as Cordovan.

Kassius Locke

Rajah Brown

Draven Bazaar

And Vetra Tanner

Rajah was the biggest of them and was from Vacuo, and he – like Sun Wukong – was not one for wearing uniforms. He once used a pair of blades that has ice dust flowing through the blades, making him very efficient at cutting through enemies and acting as defence. Draven used a powerful fire dust charged Machete and also had Shurikens with Dust loaded in different types for different uses. And Vetra used her semblance to form her weapons or used her fists thanks to Kassius' teachings.

And Kassius himself?

He uses a pair of swords that wound have the blades fold out from the hilts at the flick of his wrists – flick 'em up and the blades come out, flick 'em down and they fold away. The swords are called Lash Equinox. He also uses a pair of gauntlets called Vulcan Nox, very similar to those used by Yang Xiao Long but are black and silver with three barrels sticking out the front and use military grade rifle magazines. Or explosive rounds thanks to the upgrade Yang helped him create.

Now he is the last of Team K.R.D.V…

It was on this very same day that he lost his team due to his mistake of leaving them to talk to a contact for a moment. And that moment cost him and his team everything – cost him his arm – and his three best friends, and the girl he loved. He stares at the photo of them all happy, seeing Vetra cuddled up to him with a smile and his two friends grinning away beside him, Rajah about to get his head hit with a beachball by Draven in fact.

He stares at the picture through teary eyes, but he forces the tears away with the rub of his wrist when he hears the sound of a fight beginning to break out nearby. "Hey! Get your hands off my wife, pal!" A man yells, only a few years younger than himself. Kassius slowly folds his picture up and puts it into his breast pocket, standing up and setting his glass down, sighing as he faces them, his coat blowing in the breeze that flows past.

There are five men in here, one of them a very big one and the ringleader is touching up the man's wife. She is whimpering fearfully as the older man pokes at her, and the husband gets punched in the face by one of his men. They all start to beat on him, punching and kicking him, and one even pulls out a knife, about to stab her husband as she shrieks. "I'm gonna take you as a trophy!" The man cheers, but as soon as the knife wielder goes to stab the husband, his metal hand catches his wrist, squeezing tight as he turns slowly to see Kassius staring at him with anger in his amber eyes.

"You're not taking anyone." Kassius growls, and the thugs all turn to the Huntsman as he slowly crushes the knife holder's wrist, crunching the bone into power.

"Who the hell's this clown?" The Ringleader questions as he stands up and stares at Kassius who stares directly at with no smile apparent on his face.

"I'm only gonna tell you this once – get the hell out of this place, and don't come back." Kassius warns, and the foolish men laugh at him, the big muscular one stares at him with a grin.

"Can I break him, boss?" The big man asks him, and the ringleader grins.

"Oh yeah…let's break him boys."

Kassius sighs with disappointment, shaking his head as he cracks his neck. "As you wish." He states, snapping the man's wrist and the thug wails in agony and he drops the knife. As the blade falls Kassius punches the blade and the knife zooms towards his throat and stabs straight through him, killing him slowly as he chokes on his blood, knocked over onto the ground. Kassius steps back and raises his fists, dodging the swings from the thugs, and upper cutting one of them with the other, breaking his nose in the process.

Until the large man grabs a stool and swings it into Kassius like a baseball bat, the impact throws Kassius through the windows and they shatter, and he crashes across the road. But as he tumbles, he rolls back to his feet, and he draws Lash Equinox, flicking the blades upwards. He digs them down into the tarmac to slow himself down, glaring at them with gritted teeth as they come after him.

Unlike most Huntsmen – he may fight for good causes…but he is no hero, he kills all his enemies and leaves nothing behind but their bodies. One of the men draws his machete and swings it straight at Kassius but he ducks down and slices him across the leg, cutting his leg from the knee down off and spraying blood everywhere. Kassius spins the sword through his fingers and digs it downwards so hard that the blade goes through his sternum and protrudes out the middle of his spine into the ground.

Kassius sprints towards the final three, jumping and spinning through the air as he launches Lash Equinox towards the other, the blade stabbing straight through his stomach and pinning him to the wall of the building. He gasps in pain as the blood leaves his body and he whimpers, knowing that is how he died – because they picked on the wrong man on the wrong day. Kassius now turns his attention to the elephant in the street, the huge man charges towards him and punches downwards at his head, but he rolls out of the way and he pulls his sleeves back, revealing Vulcan Nox hidden underneath and loaded with full magazines.

He attacks the brute of the man, jumping and rolling across his shoulders and back, and as he lands on the ground, he swings upwards, punching him right up the jaw to make him stagger. He follows it up with six well placed punches to his chest and ribs over and over again to knock him back, then swinging round on one leg to roundhouse kick him across the jaw. Blood and saliva spit out from his mouth and onto the floor, but as he goes to punch him, Kassius catches his fist with his metal arm, twisting the wrist and snapping it. The man screams in pain, and Kassius throws him across the street, sending him tumbling against a wall.

Kassius tenses his fists, and he stares at the Ringleader that runs towards him, grabbing onto his sword and ripping it from his dying man's belly, causing his corpse to fall from the building. He screams like an ape as he tries to kill Kassius, and he swings his sword at him, but Kassius steps out the way, and punches him right into the gut, firing Vulcan Nox at the same time, blowing a hole through him and he gasps in agony as an array of red sprays into the night sky.

He pulls Lash Equinox from the man's hands and turns to see the bruised Brute running at him again, and he rolls his eyes. He swings down at his head again, but Kassius slides out the way and runs his sword right up through the bottom of his head, erupting through the scalp. Blood trickles down his head and he twists the blade, lifting him over with his metal arm and slamming him down to the ground with a roar, eyes glowing a fiery orange as he yells with rage.

Embers trail from his eyes and with gritted teeth he turns to the ringleader who splutters by the man he skewered to the road, blood pooling out around his body. "W-Wait…" He begs as he spits blood out, holding up his hand desperately as Kassius slowly walks towards him with fury in his teary eyes. Kassius stands above him, and stares down to his tearful eyes. "Y-You…you want Lien? I'll give you more than any contract! I swear it! My boss, Kelham…he has a lot of money! I can pay you anyt-"

Cut off by a bullet, Kassius fires Vulcan Nox right into his head and kills him instantly, splattering blood across the road. Kassius viciously growls but then he closes his eyes and clenches his fists. The Husband and Wife emerge from the bar with the other people who saw all this go down. "S-Sir?" The Wife softly says to him as he stands out there in the empty street. "Thank you…you're a hero…" She smiles, but Kassius stares at her with tears in his eyes. He may have found some closure for his past, but the pain never faded away.

And on a day like this it might never fade.

"I'm not a hero…go…cops'll be here soon." Kassius states as he exhales, pulling his sword from the corpse of the man beside him. The wife looks at him as the others bar her husband leave.

"You are to us." She sweetly says to him, and as he looks at her for a split second, he sees her – Vetra – but then she is the woman again, walking away with her beloved husband. Kassius stands there…

…alone.

Surrounded by dead bodies.

Until a voice emerges from behind him, the voice that has always saved him in his darkest days. "Kas?" The soft voice of Yang says, and he turns to see her standing there. They did not come here to Mistral after everything to fight, just to see the sights…but he never told her that this was the day that he lost his team. And that in a way – this a tragic anniversary for him.

Her golden blonde hair flows in the gentle breeze, wearing her brown shirt and her cream fluffy collared coat, and blue jeans with leather boots on. Kassius however left their apartment wearing the clothes he would wear in combat, staring at the city that is still under repairs.

Seeing her…causes him to break down…falling to his knees with tears streaming down his face as he cries. Instantly Yang rushes to his side, crouching down and wrapping her arms around him, quietly shushing him. "It's okay…it's okay." She whispers into his ear, he holds her close and never let's go like he did Vetra.

"I know I'm meant to be strong…I know…I thought I moved on…" He sniffles, and Yang quickly realises where his heartbreak comes from. She glances down at the breast pocket of his duster and sees the photograph of the team he lost.

She looks into his bloodshot tear eyes and she pulls out a handkerchief and gently wipes the tears from his face and the blood. Then she reaches into the pocket and looks at the picture of them, seeing how happy they once were, the smile that was on Kassius' face. She lowers the picture and sees the depressed side of him she has rarely ever seen before. She caresses his cheek with her cybernetic hand and holds his metal one with her human one. "We're a team…I love you, Kas…" She softly says to him with a smile.

"Why does it hurt?" He asks her, and she looks at him with a smile, knowing he's talking about Vetra. "Why does it hurt…when I love you?" He asks her, and she smiles.

"Because you loved her too…and that love won't go away. You just…find another place for it." She says with a smile on her face.

She leans in and gently kisses him on the lips, then presses her head to his.

"Come on…let's get back. Wanna hot chocolate?" She asks him with a smile, holding his hand and helping him back up.

He sniffles as he walks with her. "Yes please…that'd be great." He agrees, and Yang rests her head on his shoulder as she walks.

Leaving the dead behind…

And hopefully one day…he can let his past rest behind him as well.

 _But a brand is a part of you, and not everyone is afraid of it._

 _The past is not all bad, it has good and bad moments._

 _But at the end of the day…_

 _…it makes you who you are._

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 **Author Note - If you are new to Knights of Grimm, then I think you would enjoy the series if you liked this. Kassius Locke is by far one of my most beloved characters I have come up with because of how broken at heart he is.**

 **So I may make more of these little Character Shorts in the future, I don't know. Honestly this was what I wanted to do for 5 Years of Peace, this was actually going to be a chapter but I never got round to it. However I am happy to make Character Shorts for individual characters from Knights of Grimm (Not just either by the way)**

 **If you would like to see more of these then please lemme know in reviews! I loved writing this, sums up his character quite well I think.**

 **5 Years of Peace may continue in the future, at the end of the day it is an idea for random fluffy stuff or explanations for certain stuff. If you would like to collab and have any ideas for chapters you want to put into that story then contact me and I will happily hear what ideas you have! The same goes for Character Shorts.**

 **\- Matt**


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